2024 NLL Player Rankings: Week 9

After the first several weeks of the 2023-24 National Lacrosse League season are complete, The Lax Mag will publish a weekly NLL Player Ranking, examining the league’s Top 30 players from Week 1 right up until the end of the regular season.

TLM’s Top 30 NLL Player Rankings have nothing to do with reputations, career resumes, success in past seasons, whether we know a player personally, recognizing deserving players who’ve previously been passed over, player popularity, the size of their social media following, whether you slide into their DMs, or who others around the league tell us should get hype.

Our rankings, which only take into consideration a player’s performance for the current regular season, will be calculated using both our star-rating system after each game, but also a player’s season-long statistical position (based on per-game average, not full-season totals) across the league. Only players who have played two-thirds of their team’s games will qualify.

Click here for an even more in-depth description of our scoring system.

Nick Rose, Toronto Rock (Photo: Christian Bender)

This week, Toronto Rock starting stopper Nick Rose takes over the top spot (leads the league in Save % and GAA), pushing past Connor Fields, whose Rochester Knighthawks were on a bye during Week 8.

The Georgia Swarm’s Lyle Thompson also jumped into our Top 30 after just missing last week’s opening edition by a few inches. We got a few questions as to why he was absent seven days ago. Fans also wondered how Dhane Smith, our end-of-season #1 the previous two years, was averaging more points per game than virtually anyone in the league, but sat outside of our initial Top 10. Well…

While some get hung up on a single stat or in-game moment when talking about today’s top players, as we outlined last week, The Lax Mag’s NLL Player Rankings take into account virtually every and any stat the league tracks, plus puts a value on each team’s Top 6 players at the end of every game.

Lyle Thompson, Georgia Swarm (Photo: Christian Bender)

In Thompson’s case, last week he ranked tied for 19th in overall in straight points per game, and like he did a season ago, had a much higher than average turnover tally too (averaged 2.47 turnovers per game during his first six seasons versus averaging 4.20 over the past two years), which negatively impacts his ranking here.

Smith is on pace (105) to easily top his already owned assists in a single season record (96), but ranks uncharacteristically low in other critical categories. Last week (6.00), and again this week (5.83), Smith tops the league in assists per outing. When it comes to goals, he’s well below where we’d usually find him or any player at his level. His 0.60 goals per game leading into last weekend had him ranked 102nd across the league. This week, he bumped that average up slightly (0.83), but still sits tied for 89th. His 11.90 shooting percentage is also extremely low for a full-time forward who shoots as often as Smith does. All of that factors into his overall player rankings point total.

Both Thompson and Smith regularly rank as two of our most complete any-position, pound-for-pound players due to their way above average offensive efforts, but also because of what they do defensively.

Dhane Smith, Buffalo Bandits (Photo: Mike Hetzel)

Since the relaunch of The Lax Mag, our 30-60-90 Club regularly reviews the very rare pool of players that finish an NLL season with 30 goals, 60 assists and 90 loose balls. Thompson and Smith both hit that trifecta in 2023, and are two of the few in league history to have achieved those absurd numbers in multiple seasons. Players that put up those type of high-end digits across both offensive & defensive stats columns always do well in our player rankings.

This season, what forwards have been the most complete so far?

Well, we pulled the Top 50 point-per-game producers and then looked at which ones also ranked within the Top 50 loose balls per game and caused turnovers per game averages. There’s blocked shots too, but with only a combined eight blocked shots from everyone in that points per Top 50, it’s really not even worth examining.

So, who stands out? It’s not an overly long list.

Wes Berg, San Diego Seals (Photo: Mike Hetzel)

When it comes to LB averages, the previously mentioned Fields is far and away the best forward here, scooping 8.80 loosies on every outing. Only ten defenders rank higher than him in the league leading into Week 9. The only other forwards to find a spot in the Top 50 here: Wes Berg (6.83), Jeff Teat (6.67), Smith (6.33), Ryan Benesch (6.20), Mitch Jones (6.20), Andrew Kew (6.14), and Austin Staats (5.67). Thompson (5.43) is tied for 52nd right now.

How about forwards that force the other team to turn over the ball? We had to go way past the Top 50 to find some of those.

The New York Riptide’s Kiel Matisz, who is tied for 40th in points per game, is tied for 94th with 0.67 caused turnovers over 60 minutes. He’s the highest ranked forward in this category. Below are the best Top 50 per-game point producers when it comes to CTs:

T94. Kiel Matisz (New York) 0.67
T104. Jesse King (Calgary) 0.60
T104. Ryan Smith (Rochester) 0.60
T104. Dan Craig (Toronto) 0.60
T115. Lyle Thompson (Georgia) 0.57
T119. Dhane Smith (Buffalo) 0.50
T119. Josh Byrne (Buffalo) 0.50

Fields isn’t far off, tied with several other forwards at 0.40 forced fumbles every game. Even though Rose skipped him for the top spot, that spread out stat line is why Fields still ranks so high in our weekly Top 30 (see below). The Rochester forward also sinks an above average amount of clutch goals. More on that when the Clutch Kings report returns next week.

Connor Fields, Rochester Knighthawks (Photo: Micheline Veluvolu)

NLL Top 30: Week 9

1. (2) Nick Rose, Toronto (G)
2. (1) Connor Fields, Rochester (F)
3. (4) Josh Byrne, Buffalo (F)
4. (3) Jesse King, Calgary (F)
5. (7) Wes Berg, San Diego (F)
6. (5) Ryan Smith, Rochester (F)
7. (6) Mitch Jones, Philadelphia (F)
8. (13) Jeff Teat, New York (F)
9. (12) Dhane Smith, Buffalo (F)
10. (10) Jake Withers, Halifax (D)
11. (8) Alex Simmons, Albany (F)
12. (9) Mitch de Snoo, Toronto (D)
13. (17) Austin Staats, San Diego (F)
14. (14) Callum Crawford, Panther City (F)
15. (11) Shayne Jackson, Georgia (F)
16. (15) Zach Manns, Saskatchewan (F)
17. (18) Matt Gilray, Rochester (T)
18. (21) Randy Staats, Halifax (F)
19. (16) Brett Dobson, Georgia (G)
20. (20) Christian Del Bianco, Calgary (G)
21. (19) Ethan Walker, Albany (F)
22. (NR) Chris Origlieri, San Diego (G)
23. (24) Challen Rogers, Toronto (T)
24. (22) Doug Jamieson, Albany (G)
25. (28) Steve Priolo, Buffalo (D)
26. (NR) Lyle Thompson, Georgia (F)
27. (NR) Adam Charalambides, Vancouver (F)
28. (NR) Ryan Benesch, Halifax (F)
29. (NR) Brad Kri, Toronto (D)
30. (NR) Jake Boudreau, Saskatchewan (T)